Stoke Mandeville

Stoke Mandeville, unique one stop guide to the village near to Aylesbury in Buckinghamshire.

Everything You Need to Know About the Village and Area

Located just 3 miles from the town of Aylesbury in Buckinghamshire, the village of Stoke Mandeville has a population of around 6,000 and is a civil parish of 1,499 acres comprising mostly arable land.

Despite its proximity to a large urban town, Stoke Mandeville has retained much of its village identity, and though it has seen some development has not been too badly spoilt. It still has three village pubs (many villages have seen their pubs disappear), the Bell, the Woolpack and the Bull, which has enabled it to keep a sense of local community.

Population of Stoke Mandeville

In 1642 there were 91 people named in the tax returns of the parish of Stoke Mandeville.

The first Government census was in 1801, a selection of the population figures for the parish of Stoke Mandeville are listed below:

Stoke Mandeville History: Prior to the invasion of Britain by the Normans in 1066, the Manor of Stoke (or Stoches) was in the hands of Bishop Wulfwy of Dorchester. In the Domesday Book (1086), it was listed as Stoches and was held by the Bishop of Lincoln, answering for 8 hides, and having land for 21 ploughs. Its total value was £20 (when acquired £12, before 1066 £18), other names over the centuries include Stoke by Aylesbury and Stoke Maundevile (14th century). The Mandeville part of the present name was first used in 1254 when one Geoffrey de Mandeville held the manor.

The original Norman parish church of St Mary was not built on the site of the present church, but some distance away towards Terrick and close to Stoke House, the chancel of the church was extended in the 13th century and extensive repairs were undertaken in 1827 (due mostly to the theft of the lead roof). The church fell into disrepair by the late 19th century, although the graveyard was still being used for burials in the first decade of the 20th century, the church was finally demolished in January 1966. The 'new' parish church of St Mary the Virgin was built between 1865 and 1866 at a cost of £1,300, mostly paid for by its parishioners (no mean feat for the time), the foundation stone was laid by Samuel Wilberforce (Bishop of Oxford), it was consecrated in 1866.

Made known to most, due to the world famous Stoke Mandeville Hospital (which is actually located outside the village, on its parish border with Aylesbury), the Stoke Mandeville is a small friendly place with 2 churches, the parish church of St Mary the Virgin, and the Methodist church, just one school, the Stoke Mandeville Combined School (for ages 4 to 11), and 3 pubs (Woolpack, Bell and Bull's Head).

When the name Stoke Mandeville is mentioned, most people think straight away of the hospital, which is actually not located in the village itself, but in the nearby town of Aylesbury.

The primary reason for it’s being outside the village is that the hospital was set up in the 1830’s after a severe cholera epidemic hit the area, and a hospital was set up on the parishes border with Aylesbury, away from the residential areas of both communities, in an effort to avoid the spread of the disease.

By the beginning of the 20th century, it had developed into a hospital for infectious diseases, but as the town of Aylesbury grew, it changed as the risk of infecting the local community increased.

During WW2, the hospital was used primarily for treating war casualties, and was also used to relieve Aylesbury’s other hospital, the Royal Bucks. With the founding of the National Health Service in 1948, it became the main hospital for the Aylesbury area, also in that year it held it’s first sports competition for patients with spinal injuries. It had already begun to specialise in the treatment of spinal injuries, this specialisation grew in the ensuing decades.

A great amount of publicity was generated for the hospital and its level of excellence, by DJ and TV personality Jimmy Saville during the 1970’s and 1980’s, this and the building of the Ludwig Guttmann Paraplegic Stadium next door, helped it to become a world centre for the treatment of spinal injuries and paraplegics. HOSPITAL MAP

Stoke Mandeville Games / Paralympic Games:

The forerunner of the Paralympic games, the Stoke Mandeville Games were the result of work done by the neurologist and neurosurgeon Sir Ludwig Guttmann, with patients at the National Spinal Injuries Centre at the hospital. The first games were held in 1948 with just 16 competitors from the hospital and the Star and Garter Home (2 ex-servicewomen and 14 ex-servicemen). The only sport at this first games was archery and took place in the hospital grounds.

The second Stoke Mandeville Games, held the following year, saw an increase in both teams and competitors, with Lyme Green, Chaseley, the Star and Garter Home, Penley (Polish hospital), and ‘Old Boys Living at Home’, all providing teams, as well as the hospital itself, this time netball and darchery were the sports contested.

The games continued to be held each year until it became an International event in 1952 when the Netherlands joined in the competition. The 9th games were held in Rome, Italy, the first official Paralympic Games.

Read BBC article about how Stoke Mandeville put the Paralympics on the map: Paralympics

Sir Ludwig Guttmann - The Paralympic Games (or Parallel Games) owes its existence to the German-born neurologist Sir Ludwig Guttmann, who established the National Spinal Injuries Centre during the early 1940's. Dr Guttmann was born in Tost, Germany (now Toszek in Poland) in 1899.

He studied medicine at the University of Breslau and at the University of Freiburg and became the leading neurosurgeon in Germany during the 1930's. Being Jewish, Dr Guttmann left Germany shortly before World War 2 started, he and his family (a wife and 2 children) settling in Oxford and working at the Nuffield Department of Neurosurgery studying spinal injuries. The Stoke Mandeville Games was a great success and continued to grow, in 1952 over one hundred and thirty international competitors took part.

At Stoke Mandeville Hospital in 1944, the National Spinal Injuries Centre opened, with Dr Guttmann at the helm (as the director), his belief in the importance of sport as an aid to the recovery of patients with spinal injuries led to the idea of holding a paraplegic games. The timing was right, as the summer Olympic Games was to be held in London in 1948, so Dr Guttmann planned his first Stoke Mandeville Games to be held on the same day as the London Olympics.

Dr Guttmann became a British citizen in 1945, he received an OBE in 1950 and was knighted in 1966, becoming Sir Ludwig Guttmann, he died in 1980 aged 80, after suffering a heart attack.

Early School History of Stoke Mandeville: The first recorded instance of a school in the village was in 1819, when 6 residents of the village, together with the vicar (actually the vicar of Bierton as at this time it did not have a vicar of its own), founded a school to promote the education of the poor, and this eventually became a National School in 1843.

This first National School held its lessons in a barn, with the class comprising a surprising fifty plus children, the first proper “schoolroom” was built on land donated by Mr Thomas Gurney (of the village), at a cost of £175, a sum raised by a number of grants and donations. The children who attended this school, were required to pay one penny per week (about ½p), while the schoolmaster was paid a salary of £13 per year!

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